AUTOMATIC ANIMATOR

hey.... sorry about this, but...

2011-08-02T20:13:00.000-04:00

I don't use this blog anymore.

try my tumblr

ALFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

2011-04-13T12:32:00.001-04:00

just some warmups

am I the only one who thinks alfe is really cute. alfe you're adorable!!!

Posted via email from ianjq dot com

Wind Waker Link Roll

2011-03-24T00:31:00.001-04:00

I'm sick today and replaying Wind Waker cause it cheers me up so much. This is a tribute to the most satisfying Link roll in any Zelda game

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Fang character sketches

2010-11-21T02:51:00.001-05:00

See the full gallery on posterous

Fang is a desert warrior with a cool grenade launcher. She helps our heroes from the shadows and is a beautiful mysterious stranger.

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VENTURE BROS sketches: Season 4.2 M-M-M-MEGAPOST

2010-11-11T01:49:00.002-05:00

YO! This is a massive post of sketches from the later half of season 4. Like, a lot of sketches. Alright lets get started!

Pomp & Circuitry

Hank being a sass-machine. I think the stack on the right is him talking about Post-Crisis Batmans.

Dr. Phineas Phage. In this shot the BG was supposed to zoom in the whole time he jumped to take you through the window, but instead it zooms just a little bit and then stops. Well I guess that only bothers me.

Impossible is like a silly putty

I had a lot of fun with Doc on this scene. I like when he pretends to care about something to ride his dad's legacy.

This ep also had an incredible action sequence that I didn't do much on. I tried to step up my rate of work on this season so I could do more scenes but unfortunately I still missed out on a lot of the best stuff. wah

"Every Which Way But Zeus"

21 being badass.

I did some of the Hank/Teddy Ruxpin/Doc interrogations in this ep. It was cool to do acting on Doc because you couldnt see his eyes at all. I tried to get more descriptive with his mouth.

Teddy Ruxpin on the other hand, needed a unique mouth chart because he only has three mouth positions. I think my boss Miguel Martinez-Joffre did those. I tried to also make sure that Teddy's eyes rolled down into his head just like the toy. Buuuut I dunno if that came across in the episode.

And here's Desmond getting punched in the face.

"Everybody Comes to Hank's"

Here's a huge dump of Hanks. This is like everyone's favorite episode this season and I don't blame em, it's got a lot of the Hankinator and some REALLY cute Alchemist stuff. They make a surprisingly good team.

A weird note: The "Butterglider" song sequence from the season premiere was shipped overseas with this episode because the premiere ran long and this ran short. I like that this was a Disney-esque song parody but it was earnest also.

"Bright Lights, Dean City"

A few Phantom Limbs and Incorrigables. Phantom Limb's arm power is an awesome "prop" that we reference every time he uses his power. It's a chart that cycles through bones veins and outer lines with specific instructions on how many frames each is exposed for. So cool.

Doc and the Brown Widow. I tried to get the car to get stuck in the spiderweb in the same exact way as the old Spiderman intro. I guess it's pretty hard to get specifically crappy animation because it looks too well-animated in the show. TOO WELL-ANIMATED!

"Assisted Suicide"

Oh man big 21/Dr. Mrs The Monarch episode!!! I am so happy to draw Dr. Mrs The Monarch as she's one of the few female characters and a consistently confident one at that.

Orpheus!!!! People always complain that there isn't enough Orpheus but Ive always felt that he's the best when he makes a big impression every once in a while instead of every show.

Argh. Notice that all of the doors in the episode all open away from the camera when in most shots (and the design above) the doors on the left should open towards the camera. The doorknob positions would be all wrong, right? I know, I know... it doesn't matter. But it doesn't make any sense.

21's epic speech.

I saw some .gifs of Dr. Mrs. The Monarch's cheer routine on the internet like 20 minutes after the episode aired. Blew my mind. That is always like the most surreal thing to me. Anyway I loved doing this scene, I always jump at the chance to animate some dancing! I ended up looking stupid dancing in my chair at my desk trying to figure out the timing. Also people didn't believe me when I said I was looking up videos of cheerleaders for reference.

A Hank zombie. The best zombie.

"The Silent Partners"

I don't actually have a copy of my pages from this board! But I found one thing.

Pirate Captain. I tried to make sure he did this corny arm swing a lot.

Unfortunately this was my last episode. I got the call that I got the job on Adventure Time and the schedule didnt work out for me to be on the hourlong finale. Whoa. That's gonna be the first Venture Bros thing in a while that I'll be watching without having worked on it. Feels weird man. I read the script though and it was GREAT, I can't wait to see it.

I am so sad to not be working on VB any more but if it continues I'd love to go back some day. I learned so much there. VB is so ambitious and I got a chance to animate so many different moods and styles. I feel so lucky that I got to work on it. Thanks to everyone on the whole crew, especially the designers, board artists and revisionists who's art I got to work with. Big thanks to Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick for making the show great.

Thanks for reading!

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VENTURE BROS sketches: The Diving Bell Vs. The Butter-Glider

2010-09-17T02:18:00.001-04:00

Ohhh my god I forgot about Venture Bros!!! I mean... I didn't forget to watch but I forgot to post sketches from my work on the episode. Some people like to see these. They are so old to me. Oh... I am so nostalgic for New York.

A little background: I was one of four Animation Directors on The Venture Bros. After the storyboards are completed we were tasked with timing out all of the action in the episode as well as clarifying character acting and adding little bits of funny business. Our job builds heavily on the work of the Storyboard Artists and the Storyboard Revisionists. Direction drawings are like the extra spice that punctuate these moments and work toward solidifying the feel of the show.

I only worked on the first 7 episodes of this half-season. I moved out to LA to work on Adventure Time and I missed my chance to work on the season finale extravaganza. (I read the script though and it's gonna be super-badass. Wish I got to work on it.)

Anyway let's get on with it!

Monarch's Butterglider! It's like a weird flying Segway. At least, that's how I thought of it. I also did a cycle for the exhaust when it's not moving. I was really impressed by how this came out, especially the smoke trails when Monarch flies in a circle. Really nice.

Some laser effects. Also some Billys! These are sorta wonky but man Billy was one of the best characters to draw because he's cute.

The Henchman go rogue. On the bottom-right you can see a plan for the order of the darts hitting Hatred's back. No reason it's that order, it's just gotta be planned out somewhere!

A nice detail in this episode. As hatred runs up the Venture Compound stairs, he wildly shoots into the crowd of Rogue Henchmen and nails this dude in the gut. If you can find it in the episode it looks totally brutal. That guy probably had a family! Sad.

Here's some of Hatred flipping out. These drawings of him spinning around wildly and grabbing his gun look very exagerrated. That's not a terrible thing because the overseas studio sometimes underplays the expressiveness of poses.

Okay that's it! Greetz to the VB crew I miss alla yall.

Posted via email from ianjq dot com

whoa hey Minicomic at SDCC!

2010-07-21T14:02:00.001-04:00

So I'm gonna have lots of copies of my new comic TENT SALE at San Diego Comic-con this weekend! I don't have a table or anything though. I'm just now realizing that I don't know how anyone reading this will find me if they want it. Welp! I'll probably be at the Adventure Time and Venture Bros panels. And you know, maybe you happen to see me and we can trade! I'll be around. Or not. Whatever! I'll put it up online soon anyway.

The comic is a expanded version of a three-pager I did last year. It's not the same as that. I went back and redid stuff and there are a lot of new pages. I'm proud of it but it's my first stab at comics in like 5 years. And this is my first Comic-con in 5 years. So I'm nervous and I feel rusty.

Anyway work on Adventure Time has been all-consuming and I've been pretty silent online for a lil bit. I'm tweetin from time to time at @ianjq

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JACKFACES

2010-05-21T21:34:00.002-04:00

Rebecca and I watched all of LOST in like five weeks so we wouldnt miss out on the ending!! Here is my tribute to LOST. Or mainly my tribute to the main character's weird face:

oh yeah! adventure time!

2010-03-12T11:19:00.007-05:00

Oh right I should probably say something about this on my blog. This past month, I left NYC and my favorite show The Venture Bros. :(

...for LA to work on Cartoon Network's "Adventure Time With Finn and Jake"! It's been a big bowl of culture-shock since then but boy howdy I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot of new stuff. This show has a talented and dedicated staff, every day it seems like I meet another genius. It officially comes out on April 5th but they're showing preview episodes on CN now. I really like the show- the designs, color and timing are really crazy and the humor isn't condescending, sarcastic or mean- it's prob the most earnest kid's show I've seen.

I'm getting settled out here so expect more posts soon. New comics are coming, too! Sadly I think nockFORCE is done so I need a new project.

please understand me

2010-03-04T18:21:00.004-05:00

GastroPhobia

2010-02-12T00:58:00.006-05:00

Today I did a guest strip for the webcomic GastroPhobia. Go look!

Here are some sketches I did to warm up

snow sketchy

2010-02-10T15:47:00.003-05:00

snow!

sketchy sketchy

2010-02-03T19:59:00.007-05:00

(slightly) new reel

2010-01-26T10:46:00.006-05:00

It's got clips of the Moby video and a new project for the BBC4. Everything else is pretty much the same but I trimmed the fat here and there. Music's the same too.

Welp! That's all I have to show!

Sing of joy, sing about a boy! Little hero Astro Boy!

2010-01-15T21:19:00.005-05:00

can't stop watching this

i have a need to cut loose!!!

2009-12-23T01:30:00.009-05:00

okay let's animate something straight ahead with no planning!!

YEAH! Have a good new year see you in 2010

post-it green geek

2009-12-17T02:43:00.002-05:00

"uguu!"
/

The Midriffs

2009-12-14T23:40:00.011-05:00

EDIT: OMG THIS IS THE ONE HUNDREDTH POST ON THIS BLOG! 100!!!!! Yeah

sassy and pink!

theyre 5 cool teens looking for fun!

and they've got a passionable for all things fashionable!

-------------------

here's their original appearance in this goofy video i animated almost 2 years ago:

(in the original they had no lower bodies.)

SPEAKING OF FACEBOOK:
i know that keeping up with a blog is like so 2006. so you can now follow this blog on facebook!! so you dont have to keep checking back! Click the "Networked Blogs" widget over on the right hand column of this blog. (can I possibly say "blog" any more times in this paragraph? blog blog blog)

THE VENTURE BROS: Pinstripes and Poltergeists

2009-12-14T00:31:00.012-05:00

Whaaaat? Season Finale already? That doesn't make sense at all, how can this be the Season Finale!? Oh. That's because it's not. It's just the end of the first "half". Half. Half-season. Half-Season Finale.

Whaaaat? Half-Season Finale already? No time to waste let's do this thing!

Bored Monarchs.

There's a crazy part in this episode that I don't have any drawings of- I directed a sequence with the Monarch-mobile flying around and stuff. And eMation made the vehicle CG! What!!! That was crazy! I should just start putting notes like "please make this CG and really awesome" on the X-Sheets somewhere.

Now here's some sarcastic Monarchs.
Dr. Girlfriend and 21.
EXTREME LIP-BITING
Henchman Eye Theory:
No floating eyebrows!! This aint Garfield.
Mask eyeholes changing shape = yes!
Brow-indents and stress marks around the eyeholes = OK!
Blinking eyeholes = surprisingly yes, this is ok sometimes. I know, weird right?

Hm... ok really it's just floating eyebrows that are verboten I guess. Well that's an important rule.

Okay! Hope you enjoyed this ep! It was pretty great I think. As always, credit to the many writers, designers, storyboard artists, revisionists, colorists, background artists, and everyone else who's work I piggyback off of. Also the three other animation directors(Kimson Jen and Nick) who I split this job with.

Also this is the second time I've mentioned this but you should check out Shivers DeStephano's blog to see what the full boards look like if you haven't already.

It's been a fun half-season. If I have the time I'll def try to do this for the back eight.

Idaho Gajendra

2009-12-10T02:08:00.005-05:00

this is an old character i'm takin another crack at

also, here's some of tonight's brush warm-ups:

mr foonble

2009-12-08T00:00:00.001-05:00

THE VENTURE BROS: The Better Man

2009-12-07T00:01:00.002-05:00

Okay so we're back after a lil hiatus. LET'S GO!

First up, some Orpheus. He's been scarce this season but finally we get to draw him! Here he is, putting one of those tall candles in the ground. Also Triana.

Publick acted out those top three drawings for me, it was hilarious. I tried to make the facial expressions wide-eyed instead of seductive. The Master is just having fun. And teaching O a valuable lesson.

Teleportation effects! Yeah!! They look badass!!

Until they fall on their face!

Misc. bits and pieces.

Hope you enjoyed the episode!!! Storyboard artists and revisionists pulled thru bigtime as always, there's some really good effects and monsters and all that fun stuff.

Monsterrrrrrs

2009-12-06T21:29:00.002-05:00

the puffball bros.

THE VENTURE BROS: Self-Medication NO-POST?!

2009-11-23T10:25:00.006-05:00

No pictures this week! Sorry I just don't have the material. This is not a bad thing. The job of "animation director" is all about adapting a storyboard to the inflexibility of time. The storyboard needs tweaking because of this(tho I am not in the business of "fixing" boards, the board revisionists do that). In addition to timing out all of the action, I "plus" boards so the acting and emoting reads better onscreen.

The latest episode of Venture Bros, "Self-Medication", needed pretty much no plus-ing. It's probably one of the most amazing boards from this season, rife with specific character acting and well-composed shots. I added some stuff but it's nothing compared to the rest of the board. Yes it's that good, so I have nothing to show!!

While you're here though you should go to Siobahn DeStefano's blog, she's posted up some boards from this season and you should check em out! theyre awesome!!

Museum Weekend

2009-11-16T08:09:00.007-05:00

on a completely unrelated and much less classy note I found some weird moby drawings, they were planning for that music video.

THE VENTURE BROS: The Revenge Society

2009-11-16T00:21:00.005-05:00

Let's go! Yeah! Let's do it! Phantom Limb's getting his revenge this week! Revenge!

Best thing about council of 13 scenes: they're silhouettes! all you gotta do is "head tilt left" and "head nods" and stuff. Until the lights turn on and the dudes get clotheslined. Ouch!

FIGHT SCENE! This part went by quick but this move was cool right? I hope so! I drew these poses for it!

We usually shy away from those corny too-much-anticipation-animationy-Don Bluthesque-"acting" poses but Sgt. Hatred's personality calls for them. Jennifer Batinich Martinez-Joffre (one of the other animation directors, and newly married!!) animated the best Hatred stuff in the past so I look to her scenes for reference.

Some Hanks! Trying my hardest to make him angsty and rebellious.

MISC! Two heads ARE better than one!

as always, super props to the board artists and revisionists. on the shoulders of giants.

Hope you liked the ep! YEAH! VENTURE BROS!

Moby- One Time We Lived (music video)

2009-11-10T12:06:00.006-05:00

Earlier this year i took a job doing some short animations for Moby with Robert Powers. those seemed to go over well because Moby asked us to return and animate full music videos! This is the one I worked on:

I was tasked with animating the dancing cycles but was given the restriction of making it fit within a more simple, "flash-puppety" style. It was a tight deadline, and doing flash puppets and making them look good is difficult. I'd rather just do new off-model drawings than slide elements around. eventually I ended up just animating the dancing normally and then cleaning them up so that they'd look like flash puppetry. the most fun part of this was animating the transitions between cycles. the face was then just added on top. (i did the lipsync and facial expressions as well)

THE VENTURE BROS: Return To Malice

2009-11-09T20:48:00.005-05:00

New episode! YEAH!!!! Let's do it!!!

ABOVE: 21's new look! He's still as goony as he used to be but in a big hulking way. I'm all for it!
Dinner conversation at home with the Monarchs.
Hatred's angry about something. Dude's got some real issues. Also there's some bored Doc Venture drawings.
Oh man this scene. It looks kind of weird on air because the underwear that we drew on the boards ended up being very different than the final colored version, so Digital eMation probably had a tough time matching our drawings to the design. Well I just dedicated a lot of thought to a cartoon woman's underwear, thank you i'll be here all week.
FACES!! Faces. Doin' what they want to, accenting dialogue or punctuating a scene. Do you like any of these faces?

Hope you liked the episode. As always big props to the board artists and revisionists. More next week.

THE VENTURE BROS: Perchance to Dean

2009-11-01T23:53:00.006-05:00

Yeah! Let's make this concise!

A few Docs!

Hank hocks a loogie
Strippers!
D-19 is creepy. look at his face
Dermott expressions
D-19 is pretty cute sometimes though. You really grow to like hi
Uh oh!

THE VENTURE BROS: Handsome Ransom

2009-10-25T21:46:00.007-04:00

Boy howdy, seems like jest last week I was a-watchin da venture bruvvurs sayin "whoa mama i should blog some a' my post-it notes and drawings from dat" so's i waddled over to my computer and jammed my fat fingers into my keyboard, splintering it betwixt my calloused paws. Hm. I'm not sure where I was going with that. Well here we are, episode 40 (first produced this season)

Okay so I was excited to be back to directing but man I was rusty(and I don't mean Venture)... dig it:

Monarch going on some epic rant. These were my first Monarch drawings in a few months and woof look at the beak i gave him. Motherfucker looks like Doug Funnie.

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch!

Captain Sunshine is a new character, I had a lot of fun trying to give him some nice poses! I wanted to make him a little manic in this scene.

BILLY OVERLOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!... I was really into drawing the cute Billys for some reason. I think I was on a real Quizboy kick. As I mentioned in an old post, the dancing scene is based off of poses by Stephen DeStefano... as soon as I saw his drawings I wanted to be the one to direct them, they were hilarious. I directed the dance in a really weird jerky way. hope it was funny!

This episode was a good one to start on. It has one of my favorite lines this season:

"Shit! It's Chuck Scarsdale! Hide or we're gonna be on the news!"

As always, big ups to the board artists and revisionists who give me the gaps to fill in. One love.

Chapter Two start!!!!

2009-10-24T10:34:00.005-04:00

So like I was sayin, I'm continuing that 3 page comic I done a while back. I've done 2 new pages, which this is the first of! I've pencilled two more but they aint anywhere close to done! They need inkin! Comics is hard work!!! I also might give em greytones.

See every page so far on this "secret" site right here! pew pew pew

one love

development

2009-10-21T17:48:00.011-04:00

She's dressed like she's on vacation or going to the club, but she's here to work.

He's not really interested though.

"All these tests sound like a lot of work... I don't wanna do it"

He's ugly, uneducated, and doesn't care at all. That's... oddly charming.

Uh oh, I think I know where this is headed...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ahLretFp_2c/St-CRzKM7KI/AAAAAAAAAbI/dbjpRunDBF0/s1600-h/boomerhistory.jpg

the lightgivers

2009-10-19T16:55:00.008-04:00

...also:

...yeah. don't worry about that last one

VB UPDATE: Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel

2009-10-19T00:00:00.009-04:00

Oh hey. Venture Bros is back on the air and I am back with some direction updates! Here's a bunch of stuff from the season 4 premiere(which was actually the 7th episode to be produced for this season, go figure):

LIGHTNING EFFECTS!!!! After last season's craziness with lasers and explosions all over the place, the overseas studio laid down the law and said "Only fire and smoke!" All other effects we do had to be pre-designed by our team, no adlibs on their part. I'm gonna guess and say the final lightning effects were designed by Liz Artinian

EDIT: Correction!! the original effects were drawn on the boards (thanks Siobahn!!) and then the final prop was designed by Carly!

Dudes gettin electrocuted

Cardholder eats the new Giant Boy Detective. In the face

Hank is such a sass machine. Lately he is my favorite character. Maybe because he is easy to draw.

The best Brock.

A heartwarming father-son exchange. This episode (hopefully you've gotten to see it by now) has a really well done unconventional shifting narrative. Hank's hair length is the key to figuring out the order of the scenes. Peedee (the production manager) had a hell of a time figuring out which hair goes where but I think it all makes sense. Right?

Big props to the storyboard artists and revisionists who provide the original material for me to time and plus.

Hope you enjoyed it!! I'll try to keep up with the episode airings.

warmuuups

2009-10-16T18:14:00.003-04:00

just some warmups

oh and also i made a reel of some of scenes i directed for Venture bros:

Charterrrrrr

2009-09-17T22:19:00.004-04:00

I almost forgot all about this until I saw a post about it on Cold Hard Flash! Earlier this summer I went in to Curious Pictures to animate spots for Charter Digital Cable. I'd never heard of them before but apparently theyre like the cable giant of the midwest. anyway here's the spot I did for them:

Charter- Beehive from Ian Jones-Quartey on Vimeo.

I wish I could see it play on TV! Greetz to the crew: Mike Carlo, Joe Cappabianca, kaNO, Danny Hynes and Elliot Cowan. A really good team! We had a lot of fun.

it's all about to change, again

2009-09-01T15:25:00.009-04:00

oh man oh man, another project. Will this one will turn out okay?? It's a continuation of this comic I did a lil while back as a test to see if I can still do comics. I don't know if anyone read that anyway but I had fun doing it, these are characters who i have wanted to use for a while.

Here's a few drawings wot i done:

These two are good friends! They're going to go on a big journey together.

The smaller guy is really annoying and has no social skills. He's a super nerd and he doesn't apologize for it. I'm sure some of you have had friends like that. Can't take em anywhere.

This is some stuff in his home. You almost pity the way hardcore basement-dwelling nerds live. He's like a rat or something.

But they have a job to do. A really stupid job for almost no reason at all. I hope they can do it!

yay

a letter to three wives

2009-08-24T13:38:00.006-04:00

Venture Bros Trailer!!!

2009-08-21T00:47:00.004-04:00

Venture Bros Season Four!!!!

I'll try to keep up with the episodes once they air and do updates with all of my sketches but for now I give you this cause it was in the trailer:

These were riffing off the original storyboard poses by Stephen!!! They were awesome!!!! He's my hero!!!!

Okay I'm done now

more naked bros sketches

2009-08-20T17:23:00.003-04:00

forgot i wanted to upload these sketches along with the last post. The dad was inspired by Fat Blue muppet.

I just got done with a job and i am drawing a lot! like a whole lot! maybe if some of it's good i'll post it up!

Big purple pan

2009-08-17T10:12:00.004-04:00

a weird pan of a little girl room. looking at it all at once it's apparent that there are only three walls and no windows! hopefully you don't notice it when it moves though. I had to look up tween girl magazine pages to come up with the wall posters.

from this week's cartoon:

stupid stuff

2009-08-13T13:57:00.001-04:00

a tall green sketchdump

2009-08-07T10:27:00.005-04:00

just a few sketches

some of them are from pictures of hipsters i found on the internet, they already looked like cartoons.

another walk gif! (by popular demand)

2009-08-05T19:18:00.005-04:00

oh how i love downtime at work

maybe this one syncs up with your music as well.

animated fun walk

2009-08-04T19:11:00.002-04:00

this should sync up with music pretty well

game over yeeeeeaaaah

desert nerds

2009-07-27T10:26:00.005-04:00

this is my first go at inking a comic with brush! it was really hard at first but it got easy by the end. I still need to work on loosening up, i tense up and that's reflected in the lines. You can read the whole comic (with words!) here.

swipes!

2009-07-01T15:46:00.010-04:00

just some warmup. includes a swipe from uncle phil.

attempting to design sexy lady characters, not really happy with how these came out... ill try again soon.

also i inked lydia from beetlejuice with a brush! i am trying to get better at that. for some reason that makes it look classier... maybe i should brush-ink some of the others?

quick colors

2009-06-08T01:59:00.002-04:00

teeny tiny sketches of a nice sunset while chillin on the roof.

scurvies

2009-05-25T21:10:00.004-04:00

okay this blog needs more stuff!!!

here's some of danny's character scurvy dave!!

okay! back to the drawing board!

Poast

2009-05-24T17:01:00.004-04:00

Just a serene park

post guilt

2009-01-28T12:05:00.004-05:00

haven't posted anything at all! it's like i've stopped drawing!!! naw that aint true though i'm actually back at venture bros and getting busier every day. the only thing i have to share is this, my entry into a coloring contest at work:

i only drew the huge tumor part. the original lineart is of jon schnepp, a director on venture bros and metalocalypse among other things and i didnt draw that part- it's from a titmouse coloring book. look at me dropping names.

deadly assault!

2008-10-20T18:52:00.008-04:00

yo... finished a big new nockFORCE, check it:

a few ideas

the devil's in the details i guess... get one angle wrong and it looks more boat than car.

damn i love pans so much. just the planning and the execution is so fun to me

the finished pan.

corporate art

2008-10-02T15:19:00.005-04:00

heya, I havent posted in a lil bit... I'm trying to get things moving on the job front. if you're a young starry-eyed animator in NYC y'all know how it's been. but i got a lil bit of stuff goin and i'm still livin the dream I guess. Also, I'm learning to play harmonica.

luckily, nockFORCE keeps me mad busy. here's a short with the two chuckleheads tryin to sell out:

their pitch hasn't worked for them yet though.

while i'm here, here's a few life drawings:

put your wrists in the air

rev em round like you just don't care

swing your hips like you do when you jog

now look at yall...

YOU'RE RIDIN' THAT HOG!

The Family That Slays Together Stays Together

2008-08-28T13:48:00.014-04:00

Okay, I been slackin on these Venture Bros updates so here's a massive one for the two-part finale. I'll do a roundup post with all the other episodes of the season soon

/!\ Beware! The post below contains SPOILERS /!\
---------------------------------------------------------------

These episodes were really important because they were the last episodes! The schedule was frought with delays, holdovers and some days where we weren't sure how things would work at all. But hell we made it! and we did an alright job if I don't say so myself.

Molotov and her Blackhearts land. I can't find the drawing of them falling through the air but do you really need it? In the now immortal words of Jackson Publick, "You masturbate enough."

Hank! He's cool and he doesnt take any crap even when there's bullets flying at his head. The chase sequence was fun to direct because Hank's scared and a total smartass at the same time.

Go Fish casting and an explosion! I like explosions very much and drawing them is incredibly fun. More on that later.

This is a mechanical frog tying up Brock. These drawings are crazy off-model but I love drawing that dude's face. There was a criminally short amount of time to show that Brock was being restrained by this frog dealio. When I saw it on TV it came across okay. I wish I could have done more though.

FUN FACT: In scenes I direct where Dr. Venture is onscreen but not talking, I draw him getting bored. He's usually in the background somewhere looking at his watch and rolling his eyes.

SMACK! Dr. Venture and Brock's interrogation was hilarious.

BROCKFACES. Brock's got the best face to draw. It's a complicated, manly face that gives you a lot of options. Most of his acting consists of extreme emotions and broad gestures so he's a lot of fun to draw and direct.

This is Collar, one of the LAPD that interrogates our heroes. Drawings C-2, C-5, C-7 and C-9 were done by Danny Hynes, one of my good friends in the Revisions dept. We went to college together and we're very used to eachother's drawings, so it was a real treat to have him working on the part of production directly preceding mine.

DING DING DING! "Dr. Venture is bored as hell" alert!

Venture Bros. is: a bald madman about to put his knife to Mr. Clean's throat.

Molotov being her normally alluring self in street clothes. The effect isn't quite the same without her normal uniform.

Hank's big speech was a great moment. A lot of the drawings for the boards were done by Stephen DeStefano, a name I seriously can't credit enough. This guy was a hero to guys like me who watched his work on Ren & Stimpy for ages. Getting the chance to work on the same project as him was really enriching. Those Hanks above are just me trying to ape the dude's sense of movement.

Rusty and Hatred swap war stories. A WHOLE LABRADOR RETRIEVER.

Venture Bros is: the excitement that can only be doused by seeing a lifeless clone version of your body fall to the ground in a gory mess.

Here it is: the money shot(at least for me). I love drawing explosions and my direction from Jackson Publick on this one was to "not make it crappy". Explosions are traditionally very difficult to do. Sometimes you draw an explosion and it just looks like a puff of smoke when you get it back from Korea. So I made sure to draw a very detailed explosion that would leave no room for crap. It actually came out a lot different than I expected it to, but Digital Emation did a very good job. The colors came out vibrant and there was constant movement on the dust and flames.

If you look into 21's eyes as he's screaming "24! NOOOOOOOOOO!!", you can see the reflection of the flaming skull of 24 flying closer and closer until BOINK! it hits him in the face. If that isn't the best "super-dramatic moment gets punctuated by cartoonish failure" joke I've ever seen on this show, I dunno what is.

Also: That skull looks an awful lot like The Venture Bros logo... I'm glad they didnt draw that in the real episode.

---------------------------------------------------------------

To wrap things up I just wanna say a thanks to Jackson and Doc for making a great show, and a thanks to World Leaders for having the cajones to employ an inexperienced, second-time director for their flagship series. GO TEAM VENTURE!

vbros update 3

2008-08-28T13:47:00.009-04:00

Venture Bros DIR. UPDATE number threee + nockFORCE

These blog entry titles were getting a little long, had to trim it down a bit.

Anyway, a new Venture episode has been unleashed upon the public!

-------------------------------------------------------

Going by the adultswim schedule, the airing order is all mixed up, innit? Well that's because the show was made out of order. But it airs in the right order continuity-wise. So no worries there.

I bring that up because this baby was the first episode I worked on! #27.

I was scared out of my mind, as you might be able to tell my some of the forthcoming drawings. Some of these drawings are... well... less-than-confident. And I'll admit that some of my timing in this episode was pretty off. But things seemed to turn out alright I suppose!

These were the first drawings I did for the show. I didn't really try to embellish the acting that much- I was still too timid. But my next scene assignment forced me to stop being such a baby:

Yo-S-I! One of the highlights in this episode is a hilarious and fast-paced "OSI theme song" sequence. I nearly shat a brick sideways when I found out I had to direct some of it. But it came out okay!!!

This is where I really got into it though: Please enjoy the acting on Shore Leave and his cronies. This storyboard sequence had some amazing drawings done by the art director Stephen DeStefano.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

-------------------------------------------------------

before I forget, here's a nockFORCE that I never posted here! Enjoy.

VBROS update1

2008-08-28T13:47:00.007-04:00

SPOILER ALERT

Oh man Venture Bros season 3 comes out today. just 5 hours from my typing this! HOLY CRAP!

I have a manila folder full of drawings that I saved from when I was working on it. Every week I will try to scan a few of them from the show that airs.

-------------------

I got a job on VB doing direction and I was really scared, because I had never directed a real cartoon before. But it turned out okay. Basically my job started after the animatic stage. We'd get an animatic made of the storyboards and sit down with Jackson(he created the show!) and he would give us suggestions on how things would move. After these meetings I would have a bunch of notes like this!

Then came the hard part- transcribing these kinds of subtleties onto paper. We used X-Sheets to track every movement. You know, These things:

I'm kicking myself for not saving some of the completed x-sheets because they looked like a huge clusterbomb of scribbles when they were completed. oh well. they sent all of them to Korea and I'll never see them again! Anyway i'm sure you've all seen x-sheets before- Each row is one frame of time and it is up to you to decide what happens on each frame by making descriptions. They translate the instructions into Korean and I don't know how it works but it always does.

Anyway the episode of venture that comes out today isn't actually the first one I worked on. So I guess I'll reminisce about that experience later. This was maybe the 4th or 5th one produced and it was pretty fun.

This episode has a lot of silhouettes in it. A LOT of them. One of the best things about this is you only have to direct the heads going back and forth slightly as they talk.

I spent a lot of my time on this kind of stuff- making people walk down a hall and talk. By pure luck I directed a lot of talky sequences. But those are fun because you get to draw a lot of body language.

eughhhhh WALKING IN PERSPECTIVE. It's difficult to draw and it became a pain sometimes. But I liked drawing Dr. Girlfriend. She has a lot of really sarcastic line reads. And she's a sexy sexy lady. Which is always a plus.

Hope you enjoy the episode!

vbros update2

2008-08-28T13:47:00.006-04:00

So! Another episode of Venture is going to air soon (it's online HERE)

some stuff from one of my favorite parts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

If the meat of directing are X-sheets, the potatoes are storyboard sketches. Before the animatics are even created, artists draw and painfully revise storyboard panels so theyre perfect and high quality. Storyboard revisions is where the show really comes together.

(If you'd like an example, check out some of the awesome ones that Lauren Monardo did. So dope.)

However, the storyboarders don't get time to add in all of the specific acting or details they want. So it falls on the direction team's shoulders to fill in the gaps. It's fun because there's some overlap. I got to learn a lot just by imitating the board artists.

For this section of storyboard, Alchemist was just standing around. We can't have that! Al is one of my favorite characters. Oh hell, they're ALL my favorites. I got to add in a little more interaction between him and Triana:

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Sometimes I got to add little bits of fun business! That's my favorite part. Alchemist (yeah, him again) has to jump over a fence clumsily:

"Alchemist lunges in, jumps off of Brock's hand and smacks into fence"

It makes more sense with the timing, and it's so quick you probably don't even notice it. But it's the kind of move he'd bust.

Sometimes the sketches we'd make would add more work. When storyboards were kind of unspecific, often the direction team (Jennifer Batinich, Kimson "Rotating Nicknames" Albert, my supervisor Nick DeMayo and myself) would sit down and hammer out the solution.

Orpheus' MAGIC CLOAK OF CONCEALMENT!!! was supposed to glow at this one part, but the storyboards didn't make it clear so we decided on the emblem glowing first:

Problem with this, is that this new, glowing emblem didn't exist as a prop. Every prop must be cataloged! I can't just make shit up, you know? For stuff like this I would have to go to Carly Monardo and beg her to make a variation on whatever prop I was screwing up with my direction. A glowy variation, in this case.

Naturally, in the finished episode, it goes by in a flash and you can barely see it. Oh well.

It also had thi-

Th... this isn't what it looks like!

:|

Well, I guess it's in character. See if you can spot it in the show next time you see it.

HORSES

2008-07-28T11:33:00.002-04:00

also here's last week's:

nockFORCE triple

2008-05-30T18:17:00.004-04:00

Triple-p-p-p-postin some nockFORCE

First up, some office related mayhem!

Then some fat cat bashing!

And finally a really lame joke.

enjoy

he's washed-up but he has good advice!

2008-05-22T17:16:00.003-04:00

Hey check this out! It's another musical quickie.

and here's some sketchin'

Here we go it's animation time

2008-04-29T14:58:00.007-04:00

new nockFORCE and some sketches!

So in working up to this, here's a crappy storyboard:

and here's some character design stuff! Took a while to design this character, here are a bunch of my early tries. They're chronological from left to right.

OH! and a shameless plug! Venture Bros Season 3 trailer:

I directed two of the scenes showing up in here: The one with the pirate captain and the kids, and the first few shots of the OSI sequence! Can't wait for June 1st!

ichi ni san chi

2008-04-21T13:57:00.003-04:00

Yo yo yo check out this new video it's about Steven Spielberg using the VERTIGO EFFECT and the NBC miniseries MERLIN. Damn it's nerdy as hell

Also i have been working really hard on the all-new all-sexy NOCKFORCE.COM for all your nockFORCE needs

Also i have been trying to get better at inking with a brush. it's been really hard and I don't have anything good to show yet.

hot damn

2008-04-08T01:57:00.001-04:00

Had a lil bit of extra time this week and threw in some fun stuff. check it out:

oog i wish i had something else to post... i just never use my scanner anymore

Character poses BILLY

2008-03-04T22:21:00.004-05:00

It's Billy!

Check him out. He's having issues. Deep ones.

Here's some character art!

Another one

2008-02-26T11:28:00.003-05:00

Been busy on all manner of stuff lately. But I worked a little harder on this quickie, there's some movement whoa mama!

nockFORCE political production blog

2008-02-04T12:28:00.001-05:00

I guess I should just call this the "nockFORCE production blog" shouldn't I? Two goodies today:

Don't forget to vote! Super Tomorrow is primary voting for Brooklyn and most of America which is the perfect time to roll out a political nockFORCE short:

This one was great fun, because I got to do some caricatures, something I've been trying to improve on. Huckabee was the most fun to draw hands down! Rebecca helped me get these to look good, but after looking at it for a while I hate the Giuliani one. Shouldve made his forehead bigger- he's got this whole Nosferatu thing going on and I neglected that!

Here's something nock-related for you for non-political people!

It's not completely finished but it's all there! I was going to attempt to draw these characters on paper and ink them, but doing these guys non-digital just doesn't look right. I designed them in flash, and I draw them in flash every week. My only option was to do a composite of a lot of different flash elements. The background for the lower half of the poster is a rehash of some of this stuff.

Those characters at the bottom? Two of them were in the short pilot! Maybe we'll see more of them soon...?

hey everybody it's about that time

2008-01-22T10:26:00.001-05:00

and here's that pan!

3, 2, 1... BREAK!

some more nockFORCE vids

2008-01-07T11:04:00.001-05:00

two nockFORCE videos for you today: first up is "OMG Facebook Photo", which I'm sure you will understand if you've seen it happen:

Yes, this actually happens in real life. If you don't know, well now you know

That one was kind of a challenge because I had to create completely new character designs- usually the character designs in nockFORCE fantasy segments have monotone colors but since they dominate this short I decided to go for a two-tone approach with slight deviations for mouth colors (keeping the mouths the same tone made them harder to see). Rebecca told me she enjoys when I use basic shapes for characters so I tried to go further with that with these girly designs and I think it came out pretty good.

My only regret with these shorts is that I don't get to do much animation. Producing these weekly is kind of a strain but i STILL want to add some actual movement and it's rare that I get the chance to. I try to make up for this by experimenting with designs as much as I can but I wish I had more time. Ah well.

second is the nockFORCE video from last week:

This is exactly what I'm talking about. There's hardly anything going on visually because the dialogue is pretty much taking over. In these instances I like to think of these shorts as comic strips, basic posing and not much background variation.

A lot of animation people are always critical of what they deem "visual radio", just talking with characters not really doing much. I'm critical of it too, even though that's exactly what I'm doing. Hello hypocrisy! I try to make it at least somewhat interesting.

speaking of interesting, print this on a t-shirt and join the club:

Another one

2007-12-10T09:52:00.001-05:00

all I do is post youtubes

I have a stack of post-it notes that need scanning. I'll do it this week I SWEAR

NEW STUFF

2007-12-04T10:35:00.001-05:00

First up!

I did this last weekend and had fun with the animation. Is he "your boss"? how accurate am I?

Yes, the rapping cartoon duo that I am one half of has just completed it's new EP, with four songs of fun! Check it out at our myspace when you have the time.

Second up!

Winter clothin' is good drawin'.

Third up!

As you may have read on MY boss's blog(no he's nothing like "your boss" from the above youtube), the Venture Bros footage that I was so nervous about came back from Korea.... and it looks great! *PHEW!* It's really weird seeing your drawings and timing on screen in a cartoon like that. I'm never going to get used to it.

s'been a while

2007-11-12T10:55:00.001-05:00

lemme tell yall what i been up to.

1. Venture Bros consumes my days. I'm having an easier and easier time on the direction, but the first show isn't back from Korea yet, and that makes me kind of nervous. I hope my stuff comes back looking okay!

2.

3. Been gearing up for some freelance stuff. I got a really fun project to work on, one that I can hopefully show you soon. I get to collab with a hero of mine.

a taste of animation

2007-10-08T10:23:00.001-04:00

Bonjour! There's a lil bit of animation in here!

I had fun making this one. hope you enjoy it I gotta get back to work now!

HOT CROSS BUNS

2007-09-17T15:45:00.001-04:00

Hachi Machi! Another nockFORCE quickie!!!!! These might be grating on your nerves by now, I promise to get the second episode done as soon as I can

I haven't been posting much artwork lately... Between the quickies, working on the episode, Venture Bros day-job, and working on music I haven't had much time to sit down and do decent drawings outside of the crap I do in my moleskine on my way to/from work. Maybe I'll just scan a bunch of those.

again

2007-09-09T22:35:00.001-04:00

Yet another nockFORCE quickie! Collect 'em all!

don't hurt me again!

2007-09-04T10:34:00.001-04:00

new nockFORCE quickie!!!!

Okay I'm going back to work

SMELL YA LATER

uhm

2007-08-30T10:55:00.001-04:00

woof. I'm dog tired.

Here's the quickie from earlier this week!

These quickies... don't have much animation. That's cuz I'm spending all my other time on finishing the animation for nockFORCE episode 2. I'll put up some storyboard panels later.

IN OTHER NEWS! The show that resulted from my first directing gig IS AIRING THIS SATURDAY IN EUROPE. So if you get CITV and you're awake at 10:15a on Saturday, put down that crepe and tune in! Or you could just watch the clips on the site I linked. That's good enough.

et cetera

2007-08-16T14:28:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I just don't know

video game girls!

2007-08-14T02:19:00.001-04:00

woof i'm beat. I did nockFORCE stuff for most of the night. but i did a few quick requests from peeps

Gloria von Gouten from Psychonauts(this game is GREAT, you should all buy it):

Daisy from Super Mario Strikers(never actually played this, haha):

also, I put this up earlier today. Enjoy!

another nockFORCE quickieeeee

2007-07-25T11:01:00.001-04:00

Directing Venture Bros is kind of kicking my ass. I havent had any chance to scan any of the stuff I've been working on. But it's only my first week and I'm hoping it will get better.

IN THE MEANTIME!

Detail of the poster:

nockstuff

2007-07-16T14:59:00.001-04:00

I try to create a piece of artwork for every song. This one is obviously referencing Dragonball Z to go along with the theme of transformation. The song uses a sample from Sailor Moon but come on, I'm not going to draw these characters in skirts.

Another Quickie:

I'm pretty sure it's obvious that we're ripping off home movies here :D

I don't even think I posted this one:

snooty sketches

2007-07-10T12:37:00.001-04:00

here's some chicken scratch!

here's a few snobbish Magical Brooklynites

nockFORCE quickie #1

2007-07-02T14:36:00.002-04:00

Been busy lately. Here's a fun lil thing to tide you over until i can post up some new stuff.

the quickies are barely animated, theyre just for fun and extra content. I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

nockFORCE short #1

2007-06-24T18:32:00.001-04:00

HIT IT! I hope you like it :)

also, NOCKFORCE.COM site launched!

BONUS childish background from the episode!

A lot of people complimented this pan from the opening so here it is in all it's glory:

Here's some more promotional artwork wot I done lately:

I can't believe I am saying this but I actually enjoy how flash makes my brushstrokes look sometimes. Just for fun here's the rough:

nockFORCE OPENING ANIMATION!

2007-06-18T10:33:00.001-04:00

Good News! The opening animation for nockFORCE is complete!

I slaved over a hot Macromedia Flash for the last few weeks and that was the result! hope you enjoy it and show it to all your friends!

The first short episode should be done by this time next week!

Also updated blackdotstudios (new layout and demo reel)

AND it's my birthday today!

Good News!

drinkin

2007-06-14T17:28:00.001-04:00

a lil piece of rough animation from the opening sequence im doin:

my favorite thing about rough animation in flash is that i can copypasta in the cases where I just used to do tracebacks. of course that doesnt really help when doing cleanup, but whatever.

this is the last piece of the puzzle! hopefully it'll be complete this weekend

EDIT: it doesnt really play at 30 fps wtf! oh well hopefully you can still enjoy it... in slow motion

progress!

2007-06-08T17:14:00.001-04:00

shot's all done!

Funny how just adding a background makes everything look so different.

Someone emailed me about this film I did today and that reminded me that I never posted it here. I present to you George and Ted!

People always thought the "confession" scenes were unfinished... but they were supposed to be like that. My idea was that when cartoon characters aren't "on" and entertaining the cameras, they look all rough and sketchy. But I guess that didnt come across. I should have just colored it. :\

almost there

2007-06-07T11:47:00.001-04:00

Getting closer! nockFORCE episode 1 is taking a while to finish, mostly because of the elaborate title sequence. Here's some backgrounds from the episode:

I've been using photos for background reference. I really didn't know how to draw a good building so I had to go out and take pictures of them. I ended up having to re-draw a lot of my backgrounds based on those photos. Buildings are interesting because there's a lot of weird structural things on them that you don't notice. Or at least... I didnt notice them because my method for drawing buildings was to just stack up a bunch of cubes and hope it works.

I never noticed little touches like those things above the windows and such. I should ask my brother the architect what they're called. It looks better anyway I think!

I'll have more updates soon!

PS check out the nockforce.com "Under Construction" image ;D

no mouth and I must scream

2007-05-18T12:32:00.001-04:00

the wonders of aaaaaaannnnnimation!

things are progressing slowly. I completed the first episode and now I'm animating the title sequence. The title sequence is going to have actual good animation so it is taking a little longer. Danny is also helping me with some of the animation so you have my word that it will be dope when it's done.

I've got nothing else to post because this project's been taking up all of my free time.

EDIT: actually I lied- RPG World updated earlier this week. It's a two-week long comic story that is new to the internet but old to me. not really a big deal but i guess i should mention it anyway

NOCKFORCE HITS MYSPACE

2007-05-01T11:28:00.001-04:00

Phase 1 of the magical project nockFORCE has hit the streets. If you want to get in on the ground floor you better hit up myspace dood!

What is nockFORCE exactly? It's music. It's cartoons. It's comics. It's comedy. Listen to us drop some dope tracks contemplating on transformations, middle school life and the classic shows of TGIF. Add us as a friend and you might get one of these bad boys to show up on your profile:

thank you for friending nockFORCE

at least you still understand me

2007-04-25T11:48:00.002-04:00

s...so t..ti...tired...

here's some more drawings from the comic dealy

it is shaping up to be a silly little "Boy[and his brain] meets Girl" story. she's probably not the right dame for him but his brain certainly doesn't think so! wacky!

at least you understand me

2007-04-18T17:38:00.001-04:00

just some dumb drawings for YET ANOTHER project- drawing a one-page comic for a zine

woop woop woop

2007-04-16T17:08:00.001-04:00

working on it some more now. not enough animation in this project because there's a lot of backgrounds to draw and I'm trying to get ahead in my schedule for it. should be complete soon! stay tuned.

a short word

2007-03-26T17:57:00.001-04:00

my tablet PC died! the animation i was making headway on has now hit a snag. BLEH

I'm thinking of getting a cintiq to use for my projects... it would probably be better than the tablet PC anyway. this sucks

Imagination Collaboration!

2007-03-20T17:17:00.001-04:00

"Imagine That"

Garrett just posted up this video, which is a film we and Aaron worked on together many moons ago for a PSA contest. God bless youtube. Garrett animated and designed all of the animals and background, and did all of the color styling. I did the design, timing and key animation for the little boy. Aaron did breakdowns, inbetweens and the digital compositing.

i hope you like it

goes together like a horse and carriage

2007-03-13T11:48:00.001-04:00

The concept of marriage scares the crap out of me. Good luck big brother!!!!

hello, blogosphere. been mega busy lately so I havent posted anything new. but recently I did this quick little card that will be given as a party favor at my big brother's wedding! It's this weekend so this is a SUPER RUSH piece. Hopefully it gets printed on time!

i don't even know how i should feel right now

2007-02-07T12:59:00.001-05:00

Self portrait. I usually stick with #1.

A little dance... uh oh!

2007-02-05T00:37:00.001-05:00

be sure to click on him.

Erin Esurance Fan Art

2007-01-31T11:42:00.002-05:00

I was drawing jump kicks yesterday. I never really did many action poses like these in my comics. That needs to change. That turned into this cause I was talking to Carly about Erin Esurance:

Foreshortening's mad wonky. This time, I did the sketch in Flash, cleanup in Photoshop, vector trace in Illustrator, color in Flash, and then tweaking in Photoshop. Convoluted, but I wanted to do a completely digital drawing because I recently upgraded my setup in anticipation of doing comics/animation again and it was fun. Gave me a lot of ideas for changing the way I do things.

As for Erin herself, not only is it just a great design, the commercials are just fantastic. The designs and staging are always really clear. The animation is efficient- it's almost completely anticipation and reaction shots- sparse, but it doesn't tell more than we need to know. Ghostbot has more Erin stuff. Talented people.

Post it dump for January

2007-01-26T10:53:00.001-05:00

I scanned part of my mammoth stack of drawn-upon post its. This is what I do when I'm supposed to be working. I've raided the supply closet for new post-it pads more times than I can count.

uh doh bee fo to shawp

2007-01-18T15:57:00.001-05:00

Wanted to try out inking in Photoshop so i grabbed a post-it sketch and inked it. KANO gave me a few tips on how he does it. I'm still trying to get it figured out though. it looks really "clean". I'm not used to that at all.